Lifetime Review: 'Cheer Camp Killer'

At this cheer camp, everyone is eager to prove themselves. That's because at the annual showcase, the cheerleader dubbed Cheer Camp Champion will win a full-ride scholarship to college. For Sophia Jacobs (Mariah Robinson), such an offer is incredibly tempting. Also at the camp is Victoria Richards (Sydney Malakeh), whose mother Beth (Andrea Bogart) is a coach at the camp who strives for perfection. But with Victoria, Beth demands it, believing the camp's scholarship prize is her daughter's only shot at getting into college.

After seeing Sophia's talent at cheer, Victoria becomes concerned she's a threat to her chance at winning. With that, Victoria begins scheming to make sure Sophia doesn't get in her way and that the scholarship will be hers. As her rival's tricks get more and more twisted, can Sophia put a stop to Victoria in time for the showcase?

Last year, frequent Lifetime director Peter Sullivan teamed up with Brian Nolan and Jeffrey Schenck (two men who've also got major Lifetime experience) to produce The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders. It was the starter film for Lifetime's "Cheer, Rally, Kill" marathon and got it off to a fierce start. Now, the trio is back for "Fear the Cheer" and has presented us with Cheer Camp Killer. With both films centering around a rivalry between two cheerleaders leading to intense drama and underhanded schemes, it would seem Cheer Camp Killer was set to be as great as its predecessor. But unfortunately, the film fails to strike dramatic gold the way Secret Lives did, with that misfire and other problems dragging Cheer Camp Killer well below Secret Lives' level.

Like the movie that opened Fear the Cheer, Cheer Camp Killer seemed too light on drama for its own good. While most of the movie has us following Victoria as she tries to sabotage Sophia, her efforts never feel as big as they could've been. With such a provocative title seemingly promising mayhem and bloodshed, seeing Victoria's actions never cross that line is frustrating. It not only keeps Cheer Camp Killer from becoming as fun as it could've been, but also diminishes Victoria's prowess as a villain. Sydney Malakeh (despite some residual stiffness) shows improvement over her more flawed performance in The Wrong Stepfather, bringing deliciously two-faced viciousness to Victoria. But without any truly diabolical actions to back that attitude up, Victoria rarely gets a chance to shine until the end (and even then, her climactic actions are only marginally more intense). For the most part, she feels more like a Disney Channel Original Movie bully than a Lifetime villainess.

Joining Victoria as a wasted potential villainess is her mother Beth, played excellently by Andrea Bogart. From her first moments onscreen, Bogart makes Beth's "Cheerleader Stage Mom" persona loud and clear. And in the brief and far between scenes she receives afterward, Bogart allows the depths of Beth's selfishness and emotional abuse towards Victoria to show. Malakeh works well with Bogart in these scenes, subtly allowing us to see how Beth's cruelty is affecting Victoria and building a subdued sympathetic side of her character. But despite the above poster featuring her, Beth's presence in Cheer Camp Killer is fairly minor, only coming into direct play in her daughter's schemes on occasion. So while Bogart makes a great impression with what time she gets, it still feels like Beth could've been incorporated into the story more.

Going back into the writing itself, Cheer Camp Killer has more than its share of awkward dialogue and plot holes too big to be excused under suspension of disbelief. SPOILER ALERT A major one occurs during the climax: how was Victoria planning to frame Greg for kidnapping Sophia? Since it didn't sound like she intended to kill Sophia, how did she think she could stop her from exposing the truth? Spoilers Over And with Cheer Camp Killer's uneventful atmosphere, those holes are even harder to overlook. Sophia and her friends Jack and Charlotte also suffer a bit from poor character writing, as they all have their moments when they appear too naïve to Victoria's more overt acts of sabotage. And of the trio, only Sophia owns up to her blindness. In Jack's case, his lack of a proper apology is doubly annoying because of how terribly he treats Sophia as a result of Victoria's manipulations. Charlotte at least gets an understandable reason to be harsh with Sophia.

But where Cheer Camp Killer falters in plot and writing, it makes up for with a capable cast. In her first Lifetime role, Mariah Robinson makes a solid first impression as Sophia Jacobs. While her relentlessly charitable attitude towards Victoria will likely annoy viewers, Robinson brings a sweet charm to Sophia as she becomes entrapped in her rival's web, and later a determined spirit to her efforts to take Victoria down. As a bonus, of the people we see perform in this movie, Robinson has the best cheer moves. Her final performance with her team is probably the best cheer display of Fear the Cheer thus far.

Jacqueline Scislowski is consistently charming as Charlotte Brown, while Philip McElroy moves past his character's momentary jerkiness to make Jack compellingly adorkable. Though in McElroy's case, his performance is peppered with some notably wooden deliveries. Jennifer Marshall's Coach Mary is a surprisingly memorable side character, with Marshall delivering as Coach Mary proves to be a polar opposite to Beth. She's compassionate, a supportive shoulder to everyone at the camp, and (in one instance) unafraid to call Beth out for what she is. Other solid bit players include Andrew Rogers as the understatedly perverted Greg and Monica Rose Betz in a short but sweet cameo as Lilly Walker.

As much as the cast puts their best efforts forward, Cheer Camp Killer's lack of zesty drama and lukewarm villains leave too much damage for them to fully fix. Had the film placed more focus on the cheer rivalry between Sophia and Victoria rather than on Victoria's weak sauce sabotage plans, it might've been able to replicate The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders' success at crafting engaging Lifetimey teen drama. Instead, that rivalry is only briefly explored in the third act, followed up by a low-stakes climax that's only slightly more dramatic than the juvenile antics leading up to it. With so much wasted potential weighing it down, this installment in the Fear the Cheer saga can only be salvaged so much.

Score: 4 out of 10 pizza parties.